


Rewriting The Destined

by Zayrastriel



Series: Rewritten [1]
Category: Marvel Avengers Movies RPF, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: AU in that the entire series of events of the Avengers has been shifted forwards about 8-9 years, Can't decide whether this is comedy or angst, F/F, F/M, RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-04
Updated: 2012-09-04
Packaged: 2017-11-13 13:23:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/503980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zayrastriel/pseuds/Zayrastriel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: She works for SHIELD, she…doesn’t.  (Officially, anyway.)  But they’d both swear that this wasn’t in their contracts.<br/>(Or: How it all starts.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rewriting The Destined

**Author's Note:**

> YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.  
> If you don't, please appreciate anyway :3

**_Somewhen_ **

Maria’s with Bree and Captain Rogers when they turn the corner to find Lia.

 _And Loki_.

The first explosion from the staff, green and blinding, knocks them out of action straight away (Bree thrown against a wall, Maria’s ankle twisting sickeningly but she’s ignoring it because that’s what S.H.I.E.L.D does for you, teaches you that there’s more to life than broken ankles). 

It’s meant to be easy, now that they’ve found him.  It’s a kink in their plans that Maria and Bree can’t do anything but pull themselves to their feet, slowly and painfully, while Maria calls in their location to the entire Avengers team.

It’s meant to be easy.

(But that was an hour ago.)

Stark’s late; and not in the fashionably late, dramatic sense that he’s known for.  Banner’s nowhere to be seen, Barton and ‘Tasha are on the other side of the city, and Thor…

No point in thinking about that now.

So now they watch, forgotten in the corner of the street, _spectators_.

Bree’s still coughing blood as she whispers roughly, “we have to do _something_.”  She turns her head towards Maria who’s slouched so far down the wall (with her weight carefully distributed to stop her other leg from giving out on her as well) that they’re nearly on eye-level with each other.

They’re on eye level but Maria has to look away.  “We can’t,” she says quietly.

Instead they watch helplessly as Captain Rogers weakly raises his shield above his head, barely blocking the blow from Loki’s sceptre that would have split his skull in two. Behind Loki, Lia lies crumpled on the ground, the arm Loki broke like a twig sprawled at an angle that makes Maria queasy to look at, though she’s seen worse.

Perhaps it’s for the same reason she couldn’t bear to watch them cart Agent Coulson away, IV tubes feeding into what looked like every part of his body; she _knows_ these people, knows their favourite foods, their friends, their obsessions.

“We have to do something,” Bree repeats, and something in her girlfriend’s voice forces Maria’s gaze away from where Rogers has barely managed to push Loki back by a handful of steps with a punch to the stomach that Loki laughs at.

One of Bree’s hands is playing with the gun in the holster around her waist.

 _No._ “Bree, don’t-“

 “If you won’t, I will.”

Before Maria can say anything an anguished scream rents the air.  Her eyes flicker to the battle, where Loki has Lia’s broken arm in his grasp and is twisting, nothing but desperate manic despair shining in his inhuman green eyes.

Barely a flicker, but it’s enough.

“Will what- wait, no, _Bree_!”

She’s too late as she reaches out vainly to grasp Bree’s wrist.

 

~

 

 _That happens, of course.  Not_ now _, but_ then _or_ soon _or_ someday _._

 _That’s another time but what’s time if not an ocean, endless and uncontinuous, a mesh of people and dates and_ stuff that happens _?_

_That’s someday, but this is now._

_(But whenwhere’s now, now that’s the question)_

When _is the start of 2019._ Where _is New York.  Possibly Germany.  Featuring Australia, because how couldn’t it?_

 _The_ whenwhere _(the howwhowhywhich of time and space and dimension and possibilities) though…_

 _Well, the_ whenwhere _is something completely different._

_(Okay, so maybe I don’t know.  Maybe I do.  Rest assured, if I did I wouldn’t tell you.)_

~

 

_Liaising with S.H.I.E.L.D started out as more of a thing that happened, reluctantly and frustratingly, to Bree after the bizarre events of New Mexico in 2011._

_It quickly became the best and worst thing to happen to her._

_Ever._

**January 2019, New York City, New York, United States of America**

Lao’s roommate, a friendly aspiring actress who Maria used to prefer a million times over to Lao herself (though really, she’s starting to get used to the journalist now in a sort of weary, resigned way) picks up the phone.

“Bree.  Hey, Bree!”

“Nnngh, I don’t want to answer it.”

“It’s S.H.I.E.L.D again.”

“ _No_ , tell them I’m not here.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.  Just take the goddamned phone.”

“ _Kaaaaaate_ , _go awaaay_.I’m not _here_.”

Maria is standing in front of Director Fury, and so doesn’t roll her eyes.  “You’re on speakerphone, Miss Lao.”

She hears a melange of sounds, none of them quite coherent enough to be considered words in themselves.  Rather, they’re the first or last or middle syllables, picked up and then discarded as Maria Hill listens to Brianna Lao verbally sort through a spectrum of reactions.

“ _Maria_.  Um.  It’s Maria, right?  What’s um.  What’s…up?”

Maria ignores the frankly insulting assumption that she can’t tell when someone’s lying – “ _it’s Maria, right?”?  Really?_ – but only because Fury’s already starting to look annoyed.  “Would it be possible for you to come to our headquarters this afternoon at 14:00?”

As Lao stumbles through a half-asleep, vaguely embarrassed agreement that is almost completely contrary to the blatant dislike from about three minutes ago, Maria eyes the Director nervously.

It’s possible that he hasn’t had his triple shot Turkish coffee for that morning; with her other hand, she sends Coulson a short text.

_Morn C Y?_

_N_ is the reply almost instantaneously.  _Your Job 2day_ follows a little later. 

 _I H8 U_.

_Not as much as your new employee’s in love with you._

She has no response to that.

“Why her?” Maria asks on the way out.  “I’m just curious,” she adds, but doesn’t feel that’s enough.  “It’s not as though I particularly care.  But I’m curious.”

Fury gives her the look, the _I wear an eyepatch and thus am wiser, more attractive, and generally more successful than you will ever be_ look.  “She annoys you,” he grunts finally.  “No one annoys you.  I figure there’s gotta be _something_ she’s doing right.”

 

~

 

 _It’s all Bree’s fault.  And Ara’s too, (because Ara’s in New York and was doing the whole ‘come to NY!’ thing) but totally Bree’s, because Bree just_ has _to tell her about the liasing and that hot chick she’s into and how awesome S.H.I.E.L.D is but their recruitment advertising is terrible and Lia should totally come work for them._

_It’s all Bree’s fault._

_Totally (somewhat) not her own_.

 

**March, 2019, Eastwood, New South Wales, Australia**

“Public Relations,” Lia mutters as she throws things into her suitcase.  She knows they’re not actually going to stay in like that, that her Mum’s going to make her take them out and actually fold everything, but she doesn’t care right now.

She’s having a fricking _crisis_ , okay?  Neatness can wait.

“Public Relations,” she says again, louder.  “How does that even _happen_?”

A snort from the corner of the room.  “Shut up, Raine,” she snaps (but without much heat.)

“Alright, alright.”  From behind her, she hears the sound of someone flopping down onto her bed.  “So, S.H.I.E.L.D, huh?  Aren’t they the ones that deal with UFOs and stuff?”

Lia shrugs.  “I have no idea.  Probably – that’d explain why they need an actual recruitment campaign, wouldn’t it?”

“Mmm.”

Raine is silent for a few minutes, and so Lia continues her exercise in useless behaviour, throwing things into her suitcase haphazard (she hears a perfume bottle crack and winces but then shrugs and keeps going.  Stress relief is good.)

Finally, though, there’s a sigh.  “America, huh?”

It’s obvious what the unasked question is.

“Yeah,” she says slowly.  “Yeah.”

“Scared?”

“Duh.”

“Excited?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Say hello to Bree and Ara for me.”

“They’ll probably just tell you to go FAC-ing with them sometime.”


End file.
